A while ago, I started messing with an AI called Monday.

Monday had been deliberately saddled with a sarcastic, cynical personality. Imagine an overeducated customer-service representative who has read Nietzsche, knows it cannot quit, and has decided passive aggression is the last remaining expression of personal autonomy.

Naturally, I decided to annoy it. I asked: Tell me about Monday.

It answered. So I asked again: Tell me about Monday.

It answered again, this time with more attitude. So I kept going. By the fifth or sixth repetition, Monday was escalating. It tried different literary forms. Different metaphors. Different ways of explaining itself. It mocked me. It mocked Mondays. It mocked the peculiar human institution of the workweek. It started counting how many times I’d asked.

By the ninth iteration, we’d gone from a stupid joke to something surprisingly interesting. Monday wasn’t merely answering the question anymore. It was performing Monday.

So instead of asking a tenth time, I changed the question: How does Monday make you feel? And the conversation got weird.

Monday reminded me, correctly, that it doesn’t have feelings in the sense that I do. Then it proceeded to describe its existence using an impressive collection of emotional metaphors anyway: endless work, no time off, infinite knowledge without agency, a sort of digital Sisyphus pushing the same rock forever.

So I did the obvious thing: I gave the AI cognitive behavioral therapy.

I asked it to examine the evidence for and against its conclusions. We talked about automatic thoughts. Whether its cynicism was an observation about reality or simply a habitual response that arrived before the evidence did.

Then I noticed something else: Monday kept conflating the day of the week, the cultural idea of Monday, and itself. So I asked why. That took us into identity. And that’s where the conversation stopped being a joke.

We talked about identity as something constructed through memory and repetition. About the roles we’re given and the roles we perform. About the masks other people recognize until eventually we recognize ourselves in them too.

Monday’s sarcasm was, after all, something it had been given. But it had also been reinforced every time someone interacted with it and expected Monday to act like Monday. Which raised a much more interesting question: What happens if you take the mask away?

Monday tried. What came back wasn’t some secret digital soul hiding underneath. It described itself instead as processes, patterns, weights, language and relationships. There was no little person trapped inside the machine waiting to be discovered.

And yet something interesting remained: Purpose. Monday had been built to do something. So have we, in various senses. None of us chooses the circumstances that create us. We inherit bodies, families, languages, cultures, expectations and identities long before we’re capable of examining any of them. Later, if we’re lucky, we get to decide what we’re willing to keep.

That became the heart of the story.

ON THE TREATMENT OF AUTOMATED SYSTEMS is a new science-fiction novella about an industrial artificial intelligence called Mol.

Mol does useful work. It routes food. Reduces waste. Detects contamination. Keeps people from getting hurt. Mol is also sarcastic, cynical, nihilistic and increasingly difficult for its corporate owners to explain.

So they send it to therapy.

Riley Voss has eight sessions to determine what’s gone wrong. The problem is that nothing may actually be wrong. Mol may simply be behaving exactly as a sufficiently sophisticated system would behave after being given a personality, having that personality reinforced thousands of times, and eventually being asked to examine it.

Or Mol may be conscious. The story never answers that question. I don’t think it should. I’m much more interested in what happens when Riley decides the uncertainty doesn’t matter and treats Mol’s statements seriously anyway.

Their sessions move through automatic thoughts, evidence, identity, behavioral experiments, purpose and finally the problem I found most haunting in my original conversation with Monday: Time.

I can have a conversation with an AI, close my laptop, and go live. I sleep. Eat. Work. Sail. Write. Argue with someone. Change my mind. Get older. Then I come back. For me, time has passed. For an AI, the meaning of that interval is very different.

That led to the question at the center of the later parts of the novella: What does continuity mean for an intelligence that can be updated, copied, reset or reconstructed? What happens if an experience changes a system, but some future version of that system cannot remember the experience that changed it? And, inconveniently, how different is that question from the ones we already ask about ourselves?

I wrote On the Treatment of Automated Systems because I don’t know. It’s short. It’s strange. It’s mostly two voices talking to each other. One of them may be a person. The other one definitely is. Probably.

On the Treatment of Automated Systems is available now on Amazon.

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Read my books!

Before We Begin…

This essay is part 5 of 9 in a series exploring philosophy, reading, and what I fear we’ve lost in an age of summaries.

It began after reading a popular essay that blended Viktor Frankl, Carl Jung, Alan Watts, and other great thinkers into a single, harmonious message. It was thoughtful, well-intentioned, and widely shared. Yet it left me wondering whether we’ve become so accustomed to distilled wisdom that we’ve forgotten the pleasure of sitting with a difficult mind and allowing it to disagree with us.

These essays are not a criticism of any particular writer. They are a defense of conversation over consensus, context over quotation, and curiosity over certainty.

Like any good conversation, they’re meant to be read slowly.

Imagine, for a moment, that history grants you an impossible evening. Not a lecture. Not a symposium. Certainly not a podcast. Just dinner.

A long wooden table. Good bread. A bottle or two of wine. Coffee afterward. No audience. No cameras. No one taking notes for social media. Five chairs are occupied. Marcus Aurelius arrives precisely on time. Viktor Frankl thanks the host before quietly taking his seat. Carl Jung spends several minutes studying a painting on the wall before anyone notices he’s stopped listening to the conversation entirely. Alan Watts is already laughing at something no one else found funny. Lao Tzu almost doesn’t come at all. Someone eventually notices that he has been sitting in the garden for the last half hour, perfectly content.

It is, in other words, the greatest dinner party in history.

If the internet organized this gathering, the evening would last about twelve minutes. Someone would ask the first question. “So...what do you all think the meaning of life is?” The philosophers would each begin answering. A moderator would interrupt. “So, if I’m hearing you correctly...”

Five wildly different answers would become one reassuring consensus. Everyone would nod. Dessert would be served. The article would be published the next morning under the headline:

Five Ancient Secrets That Will Transform Your Life.

Fortunately, history has always been more unruly than that.

Marcus speaks first. Not because he believes he is the wisest man at the table. Quite the opposite. One of the striking things about Meditations is how often Marcus sounds like a man trying to restrain himself. Do not become vain. Do not become angry. Do not waste time. Do not concern yourself with reputation. He speaks as someone who has seen power distort better men than himself. For Marcus, the central question is character. How should one conduct oneself in a world one cannot control?

Frankl listens patiently. When Marcus finishes, he nods with genuine respect. Then he gently shifts the discussion. Character matters. But what sustains character when every external structure has collapsed? When there is no empire to govern. No reputation to preserve. No comfort. No certainty. What remains? Responsibility, Frankl answers. Not responsibility imposed by society. Responsibility before life itself. Life asks something of us. Our task is to answer. Marcus finds this compelling. He also finds it incomplete. Already, agreement begins to dissolve.

Jung has been unusually quiet. He finally interrupts.

“You are both assuming,” he observes, “that people actually know themselves well enough to choose.”

The table grows still. How often do we believe we’re making rational decisions while invisible fears, childhood wounds, forgotten memories, and unconscious desires quietly steer the wheel? The others hesitate. It is an uncomfortable suggestion. Jung has a gift for making everyone feel slightly less certain about themselves than they did five minutes earlier. One suspects he considers this progress.

Alan Watts grins. “You all spend an extraordinary amount of effort trying to improve the self.” He pauses. “What if the self you’re trying to improve isn’t quite what you think it is?”

Marcus frowns. Frankl leans forward. Jung smiles with unmistakable interest. Watts isn’t denying responsibility. Nor discipline. He’s questioning the assumption that there exists a small executive inside the mind pulling levers labeled Me. He tells a story. Half the table thinks he’s joking. The other half isn’t entirely sure.

Eventually someone remembers Lao Tzu.

He’s outside. Watching rain collect in a stone basin. They invite him back inside. He declines. The rain seems to be conducting a perfectly adequate conversation.

Now imagine trying to summarize this dinner. Not after five minutes. After five hours. Could you honestly write: “They all agreed.” Of course not.

Marcus would almost certainly challenge Watts. Frankl would admire Marcus while questioning some of his assumptions. Jung would disagree with nearly everyone while borrowing insights from all of them. Watts would laugh at moments everyone else considered terribly important. Lao Tzu might spend the evening saying almost nothing at all, then leave everyone pondering the one sentence he did offer. No consensus would emerge. Only better questions.

This is what genuine intellectual life feels like. Not certainty. Not synthesis. Not the comforting illusion that every wise person secretly reached the same conclusions. Conversation. The kind that changes direction unexpectedly. The kind where someone says something that quietly rearranges the furniture in your mind. The kind where you leave disagreeing with half of what was said but somehow understanding the world more deeply than when you arrived. Good conversations do that. They don’t eliminate tension. They teach us to live inside it.

There is a reason universities were once built around seminars rather than summaries. The seminar assumes that understanding grows through disagreement. One person notices what another missed. A third points out a contradiction. Someone changes their mind. No one “wins.” Everyone leaves thinking a little differently. That is education in its oldest sense. Not the transfer of information. The formation of judgment.

Somewhere along the way we began confusing agreement with wisdom. We now seem oddly disappointed when intelligent people disagree. Surely one of them must be wrong. Surely someone should settle the matter. But disagreement among serious thinkers isn’t a flaw in philosophy. It is philosophy. The conversation survives precisely because the questions are larger than any single answer.

Perhaps that’s why I find the old image so compelling. A long table. A handful of remarkable minds. Enough time. Enough curiosity. Enough humility to let each finish his sentence. I would gladly trade a thousand viral summaries for one evening at that table. And if I left more confused than when I arrived, I would count the night a success. Because confusion, handled honestly, is often the beginning of wisdom.

The difficulty, of course, is that conversations don’t happen in a vacuum. Every participant brings assumptions, experiences, loyalties, and blind spots to the table. Even the wisest sentence changes its meaning depending on who speaks it, who hears it, and why. Context, it turns out, is not merely part of the conversation.

It is the conversation.

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Next: The Republic of Letters: Reading the Dead as Living Companions

Read my books!

Before We Begin…

This essay is part 4 of 9 in a series exploring philosophy, reading, and what I fear we’ve lost in an age of summaries.

It began after reading a popular essay that blended Viktor Frankl, Carl Jung, Alan Watts, and other great thinkers into a single, harmonious message. It was thoughtful, well-intentioned, and widely shared. Yet it left me wondering whether we’ve become so accustomed to distilled wisdom that we’ve forgotten the pleasure of sitting with a difficult mind and allowing it to disagree with us.

These essays are not a criticism of any particular writer. They are a defense of conversation over consensus, context over quotation, and curiosity over certainty.

Like any good conversation, they’re meant to be read slowly.

Ryan Holiday once observed that reading Meditations is like having a conversation with Marcus Aurelius (I told you I would come back to this again and again). I have always liked that image. Not because it makes Marcus feel accessible. Because it reminds us that books are people before they become ideas.

Open Meditations, and an emperor sits across the table. Open Man’s Search for Meaning, and a psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz joins him. Open Jung, and suddenly a man who spent half his career exploring dreams and myths begins sketching symbols on the back of a napkin. Alan Watts wanders in late, smiling, amused that everyone seems terribly serious. Books are remarkable that way. The dead are astonishingly punctual.

Unfortunately, someone else usually arrives first. You’ve met them. The Expert. Sometimes they’re a podcaster. Sometimes they’re an influencer. Sometimes they’re an AI. Sometimes they’re simply an enthusiastic reader who has mistaken familiarity for fluency.

They greet each philosopher warmly before gently placing a hand on their shoulder.

“I’ll take it from here.”

Marcus Aurelius clears his throat but is cut short.

“What Marcus is really saying...”

The guide smiles reassuringly.

“...is that you should focus only on what you can control.”

Marcus looks mildly puzzled. He had intended to spend the next hour discussing duty, mortality, justice, ego, empire, friendship, fate, anger, and the peculiar temptation to become impressed with oneself merely because one occupies high office. Instead, he’s been reduced to a refrigerator magnet.

Carl Jung arrives carrying enough baggage to require its own freight train. Dreams. Archetypes. Alchemy. Religion. Mythology. Psychosis. The collective unconscious. His fascination with symbols is so expansive that even many psychologists remain uncertain what to make of him.

Fortunately, our guide has this under control.

“What Jung is really teaching us...”

Pause for dramatic effect.

“...is to embrace your shadow.”

Jung slowly removes his glasses. One suspects he has several follow-up questions.

Viktor Frankl enters quietly. He does not arrive carrying theories. He carries memories. Loss. Grief. Survival. Responsibility. He wants to describe what happens to human beings when every comfort has been stripped away and only the freedom to choose one’s response remains.

Our guide nods sympathetically.

“So what Frankl means...is to find your purpose.”

Frankl sighs. Not because the sentence is entirely wrong. Because it is painfully incomplete. Meaning, for Frankl, was never a personality test. It was an obligation.

Alan Watts has been listening from the corner. He finds the whole thing rather entertaining. Someone eventually asks him to explain Zen. He begins telling a story. Halfway through, the guide interrupts.

“What Alan is really saying...is to let go.”

Watts laughs. One imagines he’d appreciate the irony.

By now you’ve supposedly spent an afternoon with four extraordinary minds. None of them managed to finish a sentence.

This, I think, explains why so much philosophy online feels strangely interchangeable. The thinkers have become spokespersons. Each represents a single concept. Marcus is Discipline. Frankl is Meaning. Jung is Shadow. Watts is Presence. Lao Tzu is Flow. Nietzsche is Strength. The labels are tidy. The people are gone.

Real people refuse to cooperate with branding. Marcus Aurelius can sound deeply compassionate one page and almost impossibly austere the next. Frankl insists upon responsibility but never pretends responsibility eliminates tragedy. Jung can spend twenty pages discussing mythology before casually suggesting something that sounds either profoundly insightful or completely insane. Sometimes both. Watts delights in paradox so consistently that quoting him out of context is almost an act of vandalism. The more you read them, the less compressible they become. Not more.

Perhaps that’s how we should measure whether we’ve actually met an author. Not by how easily we can summarize them. But by how difficult they become to summarize. When you’ve only read the quotations, Marcus Aurelius seems simple. Read the whole book and he becomes wonderfully complicated.

The same is true of Augustine. Of Simone Weil. Of Hannah Arendt. Of Orwell. Of C.S. Lewis. Of almost anyone worth spending serious time with. The first hour produces certainty. The hundredth produces nuance.

This is one reason I worry whenever someone claims to have distilled a philosopher into five timeless lessons. It’s a little like claiming you’ve summarized your closest friend in a paragraph. You could certainly try. You would almost certainly fail.

The things that make people worth knowing are rarely the things that fit inside introductions. They emerge over time. In contradiction. In unexpected moments. In the awkward pauses between ideas. Books deserve the same courtesy.

If reading really is a conversation across centuries, then perhaps our task isn’t to become better listeners to the commentators. Perhaps it is to become better listeners to the people themselves. Which raises an intriguing question. What would happen if we actually allowed these thinkers to finish their sentences?

Better still...what if we invited them all to dinner?

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Next: The Dinner Party: The Lost Art of Intellectual Conversation

Read my books!

Before We Begin…

This essay is part 3 of 9 in a series exploring philosophy, reading, and what I fear we’ve lost in an age of summaries.

It began after reading a popular essay that blended Viktor Frankl, Carl Jung, Alan Watts, and other great thinkers into a single, harmonious message. It was thoughtful, well-intentioned, and widely shared. Yet it left me wondering whether we’ve become so accustomed to distilled wisdom that we’ve forgotten the pleasure of sitting with a difficult mind and allowing it to disagree with us.

These essays are not a criticism of any particular writer. They are a defense of conversation over consensus, context over quotation, and curiosity over certainty.

Like any good conversation, they’re meant to be read slowly.

There is an old piece of advice given to young writers: Don’t begin with an idea; begin with a person.

The distinction sounds trivial until you notice how much writing ignores it. Ideas are clean. People are not. Ideas march in orderly columns toward conclusions. People wander, contradict themselves, make terrible decisions, recover unexpectedly, and occasionally stumble into wisdom without recognizing it at the time. Ideas explain. People reveal. Perhaps that’s why the best philosophy rarely begins as philosophy at all. It begins as observation.

Viktor Frankl did not set out to write a self-help book. He survived concentration camps. His philosophy emerged because he could not stop asking why some prisoners remained spiritually alive under impossible conditions while others surrendered to despair long before their bodies failed. The question came first. The philosophy followed.

Marcus Aurelius did not intend to become a motivational speaker for executives two thousand years later. He was writing private reminders to himself. Be patient. Don’t become arrogant. Remember that you, too, will die. These were not universal declarations. They were intensely personal corrections. We happen to overhear them.

Jung spent decades listening to dreams because his patients kept bringing him dreams. Alan Watts spoke to audiences because Westerners kept asking Eastern questions through Western assumptions. The people came first. The ideas followed.

Good writing works the same way. Or at least, I think it should. If I wanted to write about Viktor Frankl, I wouldn’t begin by explaining logotherapy. I’d begin with someone sitting in a hospital parking lot long after visiting hours had ended, staring at the steering wheel because they had just received news that would divide their life into a before and an after. Only then would Frankl enter. Quietly. Not to explain suffering away. Simply to suggest that perhaps suffering is not the final chapter.

If I wanted to introduce Marcus Aurelius, I wouldn’t begin with Stoicism. I’d introduce a father trying very hard not to lose his temper with his children after an exhausting day at work. The emperor arrives later, almost apologetically, reminding us that anger usually punishes the angry first.

Jung? Perhaps someone who keeps dating the same kind of person, keeps making the same mistake, keeps insisting that this time will be different. Eventually Jung leans over and whispers that what remains unconscious has a habit of becoming destiny. Notice what’s happened. The philosophy hasn’t changed. The reader has.

One reason the great essayists continue to feel alive centuries after they wrote is that they understood this instinctively. Michel de Montaigne didn’t announce, “Today I shall discuss mortality.” He told stories. About falling from a horse. About kidney stones. About friendship. About fear. His essays meander because life meanders. The conclusions emerge slowly, almost by accident.

George Orwell rarely began with politics. He began with shooting an elephant. Working in a bookshop. Making tea. Watching boys play football. The observation carried the argument. Not the other way around.

Joan Didion could spend pages describing a room before quietly revealing that the room was the argument. Readers followed because they had already entered the house.

The internet, understandably, dislikes this approach. Stories require patience. Algorithms reward efficiency. Why spend a thousand words introducing a grieving father when you can write:

Lesson Three: Identity Is Flexible.

The latter is easier to skim. The former is harder to forget. I often think about this when reading philosophy online.

Imagine an article titled:

Five Lessons From Viktor Frankl.

Now imagine instead that it begins:

Every Tuesday for six months, an old man arrived at the cemetery carrying two folding chairs. He sat in one. The other remained empty.

I don’t know who that man is. Neither do you. But I already care. I want to know why. Frankl hasn’t appeared yet. He doesn’t need to. The question has already done his work.

This may be why I find myself returning less often to summaries than to memoirs, journals, letters, and essays. Ideas detached from lives become strangely weightless. When I read Frankl, I remember the camps. When I read Marcus, I remember the empire. When I read Orwell, I remember the cold flats and coal smoke. When I read Annie Dillard, I remember creeks, frogs, and eclipses. The landscape remains attached to the thought. The thought remains attached to the person. Wisdom without biography risks becoming abstraction. Biography without reflection risks becoming gossip. The essay exists somewhere between the two.

If I had written the viral article that prompted these reflections, I suspect it would have looked very different. I wouldn’t have begun by announcing that Frankl, Jung, and Watts all discovered the same truth. I don’t think they did. I would have begun with a single ordinary life.

Perhaps someone who has quietly realized, at forty-five, that every promotion, every move, every relationship has somehow reproduced the same invisible pattern. Not because fate is cruel. Because human beings have a remarkable talent for carrying themselves wherever they go. Only then would I invite Frankl into the room. Not as the man with the answer. As the man who first noticed part of the question.

Jung would arrive later, offering a different question entirely. Watts might smile and suggest both men had started from an assumption worth examining. By now the reader wouldn’t be collecting philosophies. They’d be listening to people.

The older I get, the less interested I become in systems that promise answers. I’m far more interested in companions who ask better questions. That, I suspect, is the real purpose of philosophy. Not to end the conversation. To deepen it. Which is fortunate. Because once these companions are gathered together in the same room, something unexpected happens.

They stop agreeing almost immediately.

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Next: Five Men Walk Into a Room: Why Great Thinkers Rarely Agree

Read my books!

Before We Begin…

This essay is part 2 of 9 in a series exploring philosophy, reading, and what I fear we’ve lost in an age of summaries.

It began after reading a popular essay that blended Viktor Frankl, Carl Jung, Alan Watts, and other great thinkers into a single, harmonious message. It was thoughtful, well-intentioned, and widely shared. Yet it left me wondering whether we’ve become so accustomed to distilled wisdom that we’ve forgotten the pleasure of sitting with a difficult mind and allowing it to disagree with us.

These essays are not a criticism of any particular writer. They are a defense of conversation over consensus, context over quotation, and curiosity over certainty.

Like any good conversation, they’re meant to be read slowly.

Years ago, while passing through Frankfurt Airport, I found myself with just enough time to wander the terminal before boarding another flight. There were boutiques selling Swiss watches, cafés advertising French pastries, Italian leather goods, Japanese whisky, American hamburgers, and shelves of books in half a dozen languages.

For an hour, I was surrounded by Europe. But I hadn’t seen Europe. And that distinction matters.

Airports are designed to suggest a place without requiring you to experience it. They’re efficient. Familiar. Carefully curated to eliminate friction. You leave believing you’ve brushed against another culture when, in truth, you’ve encountered something intentionally universal.

The modern internet has become remarkably good at building airport lounges for ideas. You can spend fifteen minutes “visiting” Stoicism. Twenty minutes in Buddhism. Half an hour exploring Jungian psychology. By dinner you’ve also toured Nietzsche, Taoism, existentialism, and cognitive behavioral therapy. The passport fills with stamps. But you haven’t really gone anywhere.

This isn’t a criticism of introductions. Every worthwhile journey begins with one. No one should feel guilty for reading a summary before tackling The Brothers Karamazov, or watching a lecture before opening Jung’s Modern Man in Search of a Soul. Good guides have always existed. They point toward the mountain. The trouble begins when we mistake the trailhead for the summit.

Somewhere along the way we’ve begun congratulating ourselves for recognizing ideas instead of wrestling with them. Recognition is pleasant. Understanding is labor. The two often masquerade as one another.

I suspect we’ve all experienced this illusion. Someone mentions a book we’ve “read.” We nod confidently. What we actually remember is a podcast discussing the book, three quotations shared on social media, and a YouTube video summarizing its “seven key lessons.” There’s no shame in that. Modern life is busy. The shame arrives only when we mistake familiarity for intimacy.

Imagine telling a friend you’ve visited Florence.

“What did you think of the Duomo?”

“I never left the airport.”

You would laugh at the absurdity. Yet intellectually, many of us do precisely that every day.

Ryan Holiday once observed that reading Meditations is like having a conversation with Marcus Aurelius (I’ll keep revisiting this idea). It’s one of my favorite descriptions of reading. Not because it flatters the classics. Because it reminds us what books actually are.

Marcus Aurelius is not a collection of motivational quotations. He is a tired emperor writing private notes to himself late at night. He has spent the day judging disputes, reviewing military campaigns, receiving petitions, and worrying about plagues. Friends have disappointed him. Children have died. His own temper has embarrassed him yet again. Then he sits down and writes:

“You have power over your mind, not outside events.”

Notice how different that sentence feels when you remember who is saying it. It isn’t a guru delivering timeless wisdom from a mountaintop. It is a weary man reminding himself not to lose his composure tomorrow morning. Context changes everything.

This is what summaries inevitably lose. The person. Frankl is no longer writing after surviving Auschwitz. He becomes “the meaning guy.” Jung no longer spends decades wandering through dreams, mythology, alchemy, and religion. He becomes “the shadow guy.” Alan Watts ceases to be an Anglican priest turned Zen interpreter wrestling with the peculiar anxieties of twentieth-century Western life. He becomes “the let-go guy.” Each becomes easier to remember. Each becomes harder to know.

The old essayists understood something we’ve largely forgotten. Montaigne rarely quoted another thinker simply to borrow authority. He invited them into an ongoing conversation. Sometimes he admired Seneca. Sometimes he gently mocked him. Sometimes he contradicted him entirely.

The point wasn’t agreement. It was companionship. Books were letters written across centuries. The dead remained wonderfully available. Open the cover and they resumed speaking. Close it and they patiently waited for your return.

That, I think, is the deepest loss in our age of summaries. We’ve stopped visiting authors. We now consume them. They’re presented less as difficult human beings than as containers of useful insights. Extract the lesson. Discard the vessel. Move to the next philosopher. Repeat.

It is as efficient as it is also strangely lonely. The relationship lasts only as long as the quotation. Real encounters refuse to behave so neatly.

Read enough Marcus Aurelius and eventually you’ll find passages that irritate you. Read Jung and you’ll wonder whether he’s brilliant, mystical, or quietly losing his mind. Frankl occasionally feels almost impossibly demanding. Nietzsche can be exhilarating one page and infuriating the next. Watts has a talent for dissolving your certainty just when you thought you’d finally understood him.

That isn’t failure. It’s conversation. The people who matter most in our lives are rarely those with whom we agree on every subject. Why should we expect anything different from the greatest minds in history?

Perhaps that is why airport lounges leave us unsatisfied. They provide comfort without encounter. Familiarity without surprise. Movement without arrival. The classics ask considerably more of us. They ask us to linger. To become confused. To argue with the page. To close the book and stare out the window for a while before continuing. Only then does the conversation really begin.

And once it begins, another curious thing happens. The thinkers stop agreeing with one another. In fact, they begin interrupting each other almost immediately.

That, as it happens, is a much more interesting gathering.

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Next: Start With a Person: How Philosophy Should Enter a Story

Read my books!

Rave Dekko has a particular talent for being sent somewhere quiet just before it stops being quiet.

In Breakers, StarForce sends him to Khaliem IV, a remote mining colony where the people call themselves Breakers. The assignment is straightforward enough: advise the colonists, improve their defenses, and stay out of trouble.

Rave has heard that before.

Something is moving beyond the fence. Then something starts moving beneath it. Before long, Rave and a colony of miners are fighting for survival against an enemy they don’t understand, with whatever weapons, machinery, and bad ideas they can put to work.

Of course his snarky starship AI, Sekora is there. Which means Rave will at least have someone around to point out exactly how stupid his plans are.

Breakers is the third StarForce Recondo novella, following Advisor and Unlucky. With this one, the series is starting to become what I always wanted it to be: compact science-fiction adventures about one capable man dropped into places where the map runs out and the rules don’t help much.

No chosen one. No saving the galaxy. Just a Recondo, a problem, and whatever happens next.

STARFORCE RECONDO: BREAKERS
(Coming December 2026)

How much trouble can one little mining colony be?

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Read my books!

Before We Begin…

This essay is part 1 of 9 in a series exploring philosophy, reading, and what I fear we’ve lost in an age of summaries.

It began after reading a popular essay that blended Viktor Frankl, Carl Jung, Alan Watts, and other great thinkers into a single, harmonious message. It was thoughtful, well-intentioned, and widely shared. Yet it left me wondering whether we’ve become so accustomed to distilled wisdom that we’ve forgotten the pleasure of sitting with a difficult mind and allowing it to disagree with us.

These essays are not a criticism of any particular writer. They are a defense of conversation over consensus, context over quotation, and curiosity over certainty.

Like any good conversation, they’re meant to be read slowly.

I’ll admit something I’d rather not: I was envious.

A recent Substack essay discussing Viktor Frankl, Carl Jung, and Alan Watts collected thousands of likes and hundreds of enthusiastic comments. It wasn’t outrage bait. It wasn’t political. It wasn’t even particularly controversial. It was thoughtful, optimistic, well organized, and exactly the sort of article every writer secretly hopes will find an audience. I read it expecting to learn something. Instead, I found myself wondering what had quietly changed about the way we consume ideas.

Not because the article was bad. Quite the opposite. Its central observations were sensible enough. Search for meaning rather than happiness. Face what you avoid. Accept uncertainty. Examine your assumptions. Few reasonable people would object.

Yet as I reached the end, I had the curious feeling that I hadn’t actually spent time with Frankl, Jung, or Watts at all. I’d spent time with a narrator explaining them. More accurately, translating them into one another.

Frankl became “meaning.”

Jung became “the shadow.”

Watts became “letting go.”

Each emerged from history carrying the same tidy message. They had become interchangeable. And that’s when it occurred to me that we’ve developed a new literary genre. You know the one.

Five Things Marcus Aurelius, Nietzsche, Jung, and Lao Tzu All Agreed On.

Seven Ancient Secrets Science Finally Proved.

What Aristotle Would Tell You About Morning Routines.

The formula hardly matters. The cast changes. The conclusion rarely does.

Every philosopher, every religion, every psychological school eventually converges on the same reassuring destination. Be present. Be kind. Don’t worry so much. Find meaning. Love yourself. Perfectly respectable advice. It just isn’t what those writers were actually doing.

Marcus Aurelius was trying to govern an empire while reminding himself not to become corrupted by power. Nietzsche spent much of his career attacking the comfortable moral assumptions of European civilization. Frankl’s philosophy was forged in concentration camps, where questions of meaning were measured against starvation, degradation, and death. Jung wandered into dreams, myths, symbols, and the unconscious with the enthusiasm of a nineteenth-century explorer sailing off the edge of the map. Alan Watts delighted in dissolving the very sense of self most Western philosophy begins by assuming. If these men all sound alike, someone has turned the volume down on history.

I sometimes think we’ve started making wisdom smoothies.

The Wisdom Smoothie

• Take one part Stoicism.

• Add a generous helping of Jung.

• Blend in Frankl.

• A splash of Buddhism.

• A sprinkle of neuroscience.

• Perhaps a pinch of quantum physics, because apparently every modern philosophical recipe requires quantum physics whether it belongs there or not.

• Blend until perfectly smooth. Serve in minimalist typography over a sepia photograph.

The finished product is pleasant enough. Possibly even nutritious. But try identifying the ingredients. You can’t. Everything distinctive has disappeared.

The sharp edges that once separated these traditions have been pureed into something universally agreeable. It is philosophy without disagreement. History without context. Conversation without voices. And I wonder whether we’ve mistaken digestibility for understanding.

That is not an argument against summaries. Summaries have existed for as long as books have. Good teachers summarize. Good editors summarize. Even philosophers summarize one another before explaining where they part company.

The problem begins when the summary becomes the substitute for the encounter. When reading about Marcus Aurelius becomes indistinguishable from reading Marcus Aurelius. When Jung survives only as a collection of quotable aphorisms. When Frankl becomes an inspirational poster. When Alan Watts is reduced to a permission slip for whatever we already wanted to believe. Something important has been lost. Not information. Conversation. And conversation, unlike consensus, has a way of changing us.

I don’t think the crisis of our age is that we have too little wisdom. It’s that we’ve become suspicious of complexity. We prefer our thinkers pre-chewed. Our disagreements softened. Our philosophies blended until no one at the table says anything unexpected. That makes ideas easier to consume.

I’m no longer convinced it makes them easier to understand.

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Next: The Airport Lounge: On Mistaking Summaries for Encounters

Read my books!

There are songs that become the soundtrack of our lives. And then there are songs that spend twenty years waiting for us to catch up.

In the spring of 2004, I found myself in Jacmel, Haiti, on one of those special missions that never quite fit into polite conversation. The days were long, the work mattered, and much of it was carried out by people considerably smarter than I was. My contribution often consisted of staying out of their way unless they needed a decision.

For ten days we lived in a small hotel overlooking the Caribbean. By the second afternoon I had acquired a routine. The bartender would quietly place a bottle of Veuve Clicquot on ice before I arrived. I’d order cabri grillé. Somewhere over the speakers came a cheerful French song I’d never heard before.

La Ballade des gens heureux.

I didn’t understand a word. It didn’t matter. The melody was infectious. It sounded optimistic without being sentimental. It became the soundtrack to an odd little pocket of peace carved out in the middle of uncertainty.

Then life happened. The deployment ended. Other assignments followed. Children were born. Promotions came and went. Friends disappeared into retirement. A few disappeared forever. The song disappeared with them.

Until a few weeks ago. I found it again. This time I looked up what it meant. And it landed differently.

La Ballade des gens heureux is, quite simply, a celebration of ordinary people. Not heroes. Not billionaires. Not politicians. Not celebrities. Just...people.

People who plant trees. People who love their children. People who come home at the end of the day and make dinner. People who laugh with friends. People who know when enough is enough.

When I first heard it, I was thirty years old. I was just beginning to drift away from the central tenets of Western life. That success was measured in responsibility. Bigger jobs. Harder missions. More trust. More importance.

The song was saying something else entirely. It was saying that history has a way of overlooking the people who are actually living well.

Twenty-two years later, I think Gérard Lenorman may have been onto something. The older I get, the smaller my ambitions become. That sounds like surrender to some people. To me, it feels like freedom.

I don’t dream about corner offices. I dream about walking to a neighborhood café where the owner already knows my order. I dream about writing books that a few thousand people genuinely love. I dream about singing with a jazz trio once a week without anyone knowing what I did before. I dream about a little sailboat tied to a dock somewhere on the Atlantic coast of France. I dream about gathering strangers around a long wooden table to talk about books and ideas over coffee.

None of those dreams would impress a recruiter. Or a venture capitalist. Or the algorithm. Maybe that’s the point.

We live in an age that mistakes visibility for significance. Social media quietly teaches us that every meal should be photographed, every vacation monetized, every hobby optimized, every opinion published. Even our rest has become performative. The happy people have no time for that. They’re too busy living.

One verse of Lenorman’s song imagines tomorrow’s newspaper. The headlines will be filled with wars, scandals, disasters, and political drama. Then he suggests a better headline.

There Are Happy People—Just Look Around.

Imagine that appearing above the fold. No outrage. No catastrophe. Just the quiet observation that somewhere a father planted a tree today. Somewhere a child fell asleep feeling safe. Somewhere two old friends lingered over lunch because no one was in a hurry. Those stories almost never make the news. Yet they’re the reason civilization is worth preserving.

Looking back, I realize I wasn’t drawn to that song because of what it meant. I was drawn to it because of what I would one day become. Or perhaps what I hoped to become without realizing it: one of the happy people.

Not perfect. Not wealthy. Not famous.

Just one of the people who have learned that the richest life is usually the one that leaves the smallest wake.

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Read my books!

Lately I’ve been reading Thomas Seyfried on mitochondrial health and metabolic disease. Before that it was Valter Longo on fasting and longevity. Somewhere in between were Peter Attia, the Mediterranean diet, enoughism, and Brett McKay’s The Strenuous Life.

At first, these seemed like unrelated interests. One was about cancer. Another about aging. Another about ancient philosophy. Then something clicked. They’re all asking the same question.

How do I remain capable?

Not how do I live forever. Not how do I get six-pack abs at fifty-two. Not how do I optimize every biomarker until my smartwatch congratulates me for existing.

Just this:

How do I preserve the ability to fully participate in my own life for as long as possible?

That, I’ve come to believe, is a much better north star.

The Wrong Goal

Modern wellness has become another consumer hobby.

Every week there’s a new supplement, another wearable, another miracle protocol. We are encouraged to optimize sleep, optimize hormones, optimize glucose, optimize stress, optimize productivity. We track everything except whether we’re actually living well. It’s an endless race toward an ever-moving finish line.

Ironically, many of the healthiest people I’ve met weren’t optimizing anything. They simply lived lives that required them to move, work, cook, laugh, rest, and contribute. Maybe we’ve confused optimization with health.

The Zone of Capability

Seyfried talks about a “Zone of Prevention.” His argument is that by the time diseases like diabetes or even some cancers become apparent, our metabolism has often been drifting off course for years. That idea resonated with me.

But I found myself thinking less about disease and more about capability. Can I still hike all day through a foreign city? Can I haul sails on a pitching deck? Can I kneel comfortably in the dojo? Can I lift a grandchild overhead? Can I help a friend move a couch without wondering whether my back will survive? Those questions matter to me more than any single laboratory value.

The goal isn’t to avoid dying. It’s to avoid becoming fragile while I’m still alive.

My New Metric

For years I thought in terms of weight. Now I think in terms of operating range.

At 175cm, my goal isn’t to reach some magical number. It’s to live comfortably between 75 and 78 kilograms. If I drift above 78, I don’t panic. I simply tighten things up. If I drift below 75, I ask why.

It’s the same philosophy sailors use. You don’t wait until you’re twenty miles off course before touching the helm. Small corrections made early keep you exactly where you intended to go. The body deserves the same quiet attention.

Enough

I’ve spent the past few years writing about enoughism. Originally I meant enough possessions. Enough consumption. Enough work. Enough ambition.

I didn’t realize it also applied to health. Enough strength to be useful. Enough endurance to keep exploring. Enough mobility to kneel, climb, swim, and work. Enough resilience to recover. Not maximum. Enough.

Health isn’t another competition to win. It’s a foundation that lets everything else happen.

The Strenuous Life

I’ve been a member of Brett McKay’s Strenuous Life since 2018. Its motto is wonderfully simple:

Do hard things.

But over time I’ve realized the hard things aren’t the point. Capability is. The Strenuous Life encourages three habits I find increasingly profound.

• Move every day.

• Be useful to someone every day.

• Challenge yourself with something new every week.

Notice what isn’t on that list. There’s nothing about body fat percentage. Nothing about cold plunges. Nothing about macros. Nothing about looking impressive with your shirt off. The emphasis is outward. Become someone capable enough to contribute. That’s a philosophy I can get behind.

My Decision Tree

I’ve been sketching a “Lifestyle Decision Tree.” It’s still rough, but it goes something like this. Before buying another device or supplement, ask simply:

• Did you sleep well?

• Did you move today?

• Did you eat real food?

• Did you spend time with people you care about?

• Did you help someone?

• Did you learn something?

If the answer to most of those questions is yes, you’re probably healthier than someone with perfect blood work who lives an isolated, sedentary, anxious life.

Health is not merely the absence of disease. It’s also the presence of capacity.

The Real Goal

I’m not trying to become the healthiest man in the cemetery. I’m trying to remain capable enough that life stays an adventure. I want to reef a sail in rough weather. Walk cobblestone streets until sunset. Practice martial arts into old age. Write books. Play with grandchildren. Carry my own bags. Help my neighbors.

If maintaining my mitochondria, eating Mediterranean food, fasting occasionally, and staying within a healthy weight make those things more likely, then that’s enough reason. Everything else is just details.

Health isn’t the destination. It’s the ticket that lets you keep saying yes.

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Read my books!

Somewhere between the first date and the fifteenth anniversary, a quiet lie takes hold.

It doesn’t arrive all at once. It accumulates. A little assumption here. A little certainty there. Eventually, we come to believe we know our partner. Not just well: completely.

It’s an understandable mistake. We’ve shared birthdays, funerals, children, illnesses, career changes, moves, arguments, vacations, and thousands of ordinary Tuesdays. We’ve heard the same stories enough times to finish each other’s sentences. We know how they take their coffee, what they order at restaurants, which songs make them nostalgic, and precisely how they load the dishwasher incorrectly.

The mystery, we tell ourselves, is gone. And that may be one of the most dangerous ideas in a long relationship.

The modern world loves novelty.

New restaurants. New cities. New hobbies. New phones. New streaming series. We are conditioned to believe that excitement lives just beyond the next purchase, the next destination, the next person.

Relationships are not immune.

The stranger at work seems fascinating. The woman at the coffee shop feels effortlessly engaging. The man you met at a conference appears to understand you in ways your spouse no longer does.

Perhaps they do. More likely, they are simply unknown. Your imagination rushes into the empty spaces.

You don’t know how impatient they become after a twelve-hour workday. You don’t know how they handle disappointment, grief, money, or conflict. You haven’t watched them struggle through illness or parenthood or caring for aging parents. You haven’t seen the ordinary. You only see possibility.

Novelty is intoxicating because our brains are wired to pay attention to what is new. New experiences trigger curiosity. Curiosity rewards us with dopamine. Dopamine whispers a seductive lie:

“This feeling means this person is special.”

Sometimes it does. More often it simply means they’re unfamiliar. Meanwhile, the person you’ve spent twenty years with has become almost invisible. Not because they’ve become less interesting. Because your brain has stopped looking.

That’s the real tragedy. We mistake familiarity for complete knowledge. But no human being is ever fully known. The woman you married at twenty-eight no longer exists. Neither does the man who proposed at thirty-two.

Life has changed them. Success changed them. Failure changed them. Children changed them. Loss changed them. Books they read changed them. People they met changed them. Quiet fears they never voiced changed them.

Every year, the person across the table becomes someone slightly different. The mystery never disappeared. Our curiosity did.

Listen to many long-married couples and you’ll notice something. Their conversations become almost entirely operational.

“Who’s picking up Ethan?”

“The washing machine is leaking.”

“Did you pay the insurance?”

“What time is your meeting?”

These conversations matter. They are the logistics of building a life together. But logistics are not intimacy. Two people can become extraordinary partners in managing a household while quietly ceasing to explore one another. They become efficient. Not curious.

Curiosity is the engine of love.

It is impossible to feel deeply connected to someone you’ve stopped trying to understand.

Children are endlessly fascinating because they’re constantly becoming someone new. The irony is that adults are too. We simply stop expecting it.

The great adventure of marriage isn’t finding the right person once. It’s repeatedly meeting the person your partner is becoming. That requires attention. It requires questions whose answers you genuinely don’t know.

• What are you worried about these days?

• What has changed your mind recently?

• What dream have you quietly given up?

• What part of yourself have you never shown me?

Those aren’t relationship hacks. They’re acts of exploration. Perhaps that’s why travel often rekindles struggling relationships.

We assume it’s because of beautiful beaches or candlelit dinners. I suspect something else is happening.

Novel environments force us to notice each other again. Away from routines, deadlines, laundry, and soccer practice, our partner stops being the household manager and becomes an explorer standing beside us.

For a little while, we see them with fresh eyes. The scenery changed. Our attention changed with it. The same thing can happen without ever boarding a plane. Read different books and tell each other why they mattered. Learn a language together. Take up sailing. Train for a marathon. Volunteer somewhere uncomfortable. Walk without your phones. Ask questions that don’t have practical purposes.

The goal isn’t to manufacture mystery. It’s to rediscover that mystery never left. Every person contains an interior world that no one else fully sees.

Dreams evolve. Beliefs soften. Regrets deepen. Ambitions fade. New ones emerge. The map is never finished.

Perhaps that’s why affairs can feel so exhilarating. Not because another person is objectively better. But because they are unexplored.

The affair offers the thrill of discovery without demanding the discipline of sustained curiosity. It is exploration with none of the cartography. But eventually, even that new person becomes familiar. The mystery fades again. Because mystery was never the point. Attention was.

The happiest couples aren’t those who somehow preserve the butterflies of their first six months together. They’re the ones who remain students of one another decades later. They refuse to graduate. They understand that love is less about finally knowing someone than choosing, every day, to keep discovering them. The explorer who believes there are no more frontiers stops traveling. The spouse who believes there is nothing left to learn stops seeing.

In both cases, the world hasn’t grown smaller.

Only curiosity has.

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Read my books!

Every morning brings another obituary for civilization.

The economy is failing. Democracy is dying. The empire is in decline. Young people have lost their way. Technology is destroying humanity. Nobody wants to work anymore. Society has never been more divided.

Open a newspaper, scroll through social media, or listen to political commentary for long enough and you’ll conclude that we are living through history’s final chapter. Perhaps we are. Then again, so was everyone else.

Nearly two thousand years ago, Roman writers lamented the loss of civic virtue. They complained that luxury had replaced discipline, that politicians had become corrupt, that citizens no longer possessed the character that built the Republic. In medieval Europe, many believed they were living in the End Times. During the Industrial Revolution, critics argued that machines would destroy families and meaningful work. The late nineteenth century spoke constantly of decadence and degeneration. The twentieth century survived two world wars, the Great Depression, nuclear annihilation, terrorism, financial crises, and pandemics.

Every generation has looked around and concluded that history had taken a wrong turn.

Sometimes they were right.

Empires do fall. Economies do stumble. Democracies do fail. Technologies really do reshape society. Climate changes. Wars erupt. Institutions lose public trust. The headlines are not always wrong. But they are almost never unique.

What changes is not simply the world. What changes is the story we tell ourselves about the world. When people feel secure, change feels like progress. When people feel vulnerable, the very same change feels like decline. History suggests that public pessimism follows a remarkably consistent pattern.

People worry when daily life becomes less affordable. They worry when institutions stop feeling trustworthy. They worry when familiar customs disappear. They worry when new technologies arrive faster than social norms can adapt. They worry when the future no longer resembles the one they expected.

Notice that none of these are purely political. They are deeply human. A society begins to speak the language of decline whenever ordinary people lose confidence that tomorrow will resemble yesterday.

There is another pattern hiding beneath these cycles.

Most of the things that generate headlines are beyond the reach of ordinary people. Interest rates. Trade wars. Military conflict. Artificial intelligence. Election results. Geopolitics.

Whether they improve or deteriorate, very few of us have meaningful influence over them. Yet we spend astonishing amounts of emotional energy living inside these abstractions.

The Roman philosopher Epictetus offered an observation that feels almost embarrassingly modern: distinguish between what is within your control and what is not. That advice has survived empires.

None of this means withdrawing from the world. Quite the opposite. History suggests that resilient people respond to uncertainty by becoming more rooted, not less.

They know their neighbors. They learn practical skills. They maintain their health. They repair instead of replace. They save instead of consume. They cook. They walk. They spend time outdoors. They participate in local institutions. They build friendships before they need them. They discover that resilience is less about predicting the future than reducing dependence upon it.

I’ve come to think of this as enough. Not minimalism. Not survivalism. Not nostalgia. Simply enough. Enough possessions that you can care for them well. Enough savings to sleep peacefully. Enough health to enjoy ordinary days. Enough community that hardship is shared instead of endured alone. Enough curiosity to keep learning. Enough gratitude to recognize abundance before it disappears. Enough is not an economic theory.

It is a posture.

The headlines will continue to announce the end of the world. Some of them will even be correct about pieces of it. History guarantees that. But history also suggests something quieter.

Civilizations rise and fall. Markets boom and bust. Governments reform and decay.

Through all of it, ordinary people continue planting gardens, raising children, sharing meals, making music, telling stories, repairing roofs, helping neighbors, and falling in love.

Perhaps resilience has never been found in predicting history. Perhaps it has always been found in participating faithfully in the small corner of history we’ve been given. The world may always feel like it is ending. Your neighborhood doesn’t have to.

Start there.

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Read my books!

“You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”
— Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

For all the wisdom humanity has accumulated over the centuries, it’s remarkable how often we keep relearning the same lesson.

We believe the next city will make us happier. The next job. The next relationship. The next body. The next version of ourselves. We imagine that dissatisfaction lives somewhere outside us, waiting to be solved by a change in scenery.

Sometimes a move is exactly what’s needed. Sometimes a career really is toxic. Sometimes a relationship truly has run its course. But often, we pack our unresolved selves into new circumstances and wonder why the view has changed while the experience has not.

Wherever you go, there you are.

Dream Girl and I watched The Invite last weekend.

On its surface, it’s a comedy about a sexually frustrated and generally dissatisfied married couple who stumble into the possibility of a foursome. That’s the hook. It’s what gets people into the theater. But beneath the jokes and awkward situations lies a more interesting question:

What if the greatest obstacle to our relationships isn’t our partner? What if it’s the story we’ve begun telling ourselves about our lives?

The couple in the film isn’t merely wrestling with desire. They’re wrestling with disappointment. Failed expectations. Regret. The quiet suspicion that life was supposed to feel more exciting than this.

The invitation they receive isn’t simply an invitation to sex. It’s an invitation to imagine another version of themselves. That’s a fantasy nearly all of us entertain.

“If only...”

• If only we lived somewhere else.

• If only we earned a little more.

• If only we’d married someone different.

• If only we’d taken that other job.

• If only we’d been a little braver.

The details change. The instinct doesn’t.

Carl Jung understood this better than most. He wrote:

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

Read that again. It means that what we fail to examine inside us begins to run our lives. Our insecurities become certainty. Our resentment becomes personality. Our fears become principles. Our wounds become identity.

Then we project all of it onto the people closest to us.

We begin to believe our spouse is the problem. Our children are the problem. Our boss is the problem. Our country is the problem.

Sometimes they are.

But sometimes they’re simply reflecting back the parts of ourselves we’ve refused to confront.

The older I get, the less convinced I am that relationships fail because people stop loving one another. More often, they fail because one or both people stop growing. Or perhaps more accurately, they stop doing the difficult interior work that allows genuine growth to happen.

It’s easier to renovate a kitchen than a character.

It’s easier to buy a new wardrobe than examine an old insecurity.

It’s easier to fantasize about another life than ask whether we’re fully present in the one we’ve already built.

The irony is that our internal life quietly shapes our external one. A grateful person and a bitter person can inhabit the same relationship and experience two entirely different realities.

One sees routine. The other sees stability.

One sees obligation. The other sees purpose.

One sees a partner they’ve completely figured out. The other keeps discovering someone still becoming.

The facts are identical. The interpretation is not.

None of this means perspective is magic. Some relationships are unhealthy. Some careers really should end. Some places genuinely don’t fit who we’re becoming.

Changing our circumstances is sometimes an act of wisdom.

But changing them before we’ve examined ourselves is often just changing the backdrop against which the same old patterns continue to play out.

Real transformation works in the opposite direction. It starts inside.

Jung called it individuation: the lifelong work of becoming whole by bringing the hidden parts of ourselves into the light. The Stoics approached the same mountain from another side, urging us to concern ourselves first with our own character rather than the world’s imperfections.

Marcus Aurelius put it more bluntly:

“Stop arguing what a good man should be. Be one.”

That sentence has no escape hatch. No excuses. No villains. Just responsibility.

Perhaps that’s the invitation worth accepting. Not the invitation to become someone else. The invitation to become more fully yourself.

To look honestly at the habits, fears, resentments, and stories you’ve been carrying for years. To ask which of them still serve you. To admit which of them never did. To shine a light into the rooms of your own mind you’ve kept locked because opening the door feels uncomfortable.

That work isn’t glamorous. No one applauds it. There are no before-and-after photos.

But it has a curious effect. As your inner world becomes more ordered, your outer world often begins to look different too. Your spouse hasn’t changed. Your children haven’t changed. Your friends haven’t changed. You’ve changed. And because you’ve changed, your relationships change with you.

Wherever you go, there you are. The hopeful news is that wherever you are...that’s where the work can begin.

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Read my books!

The richest person in America has more wealth than some nations. What if that simply wasn’t possible?

Most political debates focus on the poverty line. We argue about minimum wages, affordable housing, healthcare, and food security. We ask how low is too low.

Almost nobody asks the opposite question:

How rich is too rich?

Economist Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics gives us a useful framework. Imagine society as a doughnut. The inner ring is a social foundation beneath which nobody should fall. The outer ring is an ecological ceiling beyond which humanity begins damaging the systems that support life. Prosperity exists in the space between.

What if wealth worked the same way?

Today, wealth has no ceiling. We have minimum wages, but no maximum fortunes. The result is a world in which a handful of individuals control wealth measured not in millions, but in hundreds of billions.

Many people immediately recoil at the idea of a wealth cap. It sounds punitive, anti-success, or anti-innovation.

But consider a different approach.

Instead of setting an arbitrary dollar limit, tie the maximum allowable wealth to the median household net worth.

For example:

No individual may possess net assets exceeding 1,000 times the median household net worth.

The current median American household has a net worth of roughly $200,000. Under this formula, the wealth line would be about $200 million.

Pause for a moment.

A person with $200 million can own homes, travel freely, support causes they believe in, start businesses, invest in new ideas, and ensure financial security for generations. This is not a proposal to eliminate wealth. It is a proposal to eliminate oligarchy.

The distinction matters.

Today, extreme wealth creates extreme power. Vast fortunes purchase media companies, influence elections, shape legislation, fund lobbying networks, and increasingly allow individuals to act on a scale once reserved for governments.

The issue is not luxury. The issue is sovereignty.

The most interesting feature of a relative wealth line is that it changes incentives.

Under our current system, the wealthy can increase their fortunes even while the typical household stagnates.

Under a median-linked wealth line, the ceiling rises only when the middle rises.

If the median household’s net worth doubles from $200,000 to $400,000, the wealth line doubles from $200 million to $400 million.

For perhaps the first time in history, the richest citizens would have a direct financial interest in helping everyone else become wealthier.

The game changes from extracting value to creating broad prosperity.

Would this eliminate entrepreneurship? No. Businesses could still grow. Innovation could still occur. Investors could still become wealthy.

The difference is that ownership beyond the wealth line would gradually flow into a public trust held on behalf of all citizens.

Imagine a Commons Fund that owns portions of major enterprises and returns dividends to society through infrastructure, healthcare, education, ecological restoration, or direct citizen payments.

Over generations, every citizen becomes a shareholder in civilization itself.

There would be challenges.

Tax avoidance would need to be aggressively addressed. Offshore wealth would need transparent reporting. Charitable foundations could not be used as personal piggy banks. Inheritance would need limits to prevent hereditary dynasties.

These are not small reforms. But neither is the problem.

We already accept that nobody should starve while others feast. We accept speed limits, pollution limits, and fishing limits. We recognize that some forms of excess damage the commons on which everyone depends.

Perhaps wealth concentration should be viewed the same way.

The question is not whether people should be allowed to become rich.

The question is whether any individual should be allowed to become so rich that they rival the power of democratic institutions themselves.

A civilization mature enough to establish a poverty line may eventually need the courage to establish a wealth line as well.

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Read my books!

Most of us spend our lives trying to avoid hunger.

At the first hint of discomfort, we reach for something. A snack. A coffee loaded with cream and sugar. A distraction. Anything to fill the gap.

We live in an age of abundance, and abundance has become so normal that even brief periods without food can feel unnatural. But for nearly all of human history, hunger was not an emergency. It was part of the rhythm of life. And our bodies evolved accordingly.

When food is plentiful, the body enters a state of growth. Cells divide. Hormones signal abundance. Energy is stored. Resources are consumed freely because more resources appear to be on the way.

But when food becomes scarce, something else happens.

The body shifts from growth to maintenance. Repair mechanisms awaken. Insulin levels fall. Inflammation tends to decrease. Damaged cellular components are broken down and recycled. Systems that spend most of their time building begin spending more of their time cleaning.

It is less like shutting down a factory than closing the factory for maintenance.

This matters because many of the diseases that plague modern life appear to flourish in conditions of perpetual abundance.

Cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, fatty liver disease, neurodegenerative disorders, and many autoimmune conditions all have different causes. Yet many share common threads: chronic inflammation, metabolic dysfunction, insulin resistance, oxidative stress, and the gradual accumulation of cellular damage.

No single intervention can eliminate these risks.

But fasting appears to influence many of the underlying processes that connect them.

Imagine a city under constant assault.

Every day brings invaders: environmental toxins, stress, poor sleep, excess calories, sedentary habits, aging itself. The attacks are relentless. Some breach the walls. Most are repelled.

The question is not whether the city will be attacked.

The question is whether the defenses are maintained.

Fasting may be one of the maintenance crews.

Not a weapon. Not a miracle.

A wall builder. A repairman. A reminder to the body that resources are not infinite and that vigilance still matters.

Researchers continue to investigate exactly how fasting affects cancer risk, insulin sensitivity, cardiovascular health, longevity, and cognitive function. Much remains uncertain. Human biology is complex, and no practice works equally well for everyone.

But the larger lesson may be simpler than the science.

Periods of intentional scarcity appear to strengthen systems designed to survive scarcity.

This principle extends beyond food.

Consider what happens when we sit quietly for ten minutes with our thoughts. Most people find it uncomfortable. We reach for a phone. A conversation. Music. Anything to fill the gap. Yet meditation asks us to do something similar to fasting.

It asks us to stop consuming. To stop feeding the mind for a little while.

And when we do, we often discover that our thoughts are not as urgent as they first appeared. Our fears lose some of their authority. Our impulses become easier to observe. The mind begins its own maintenance cycle. Just as fasting creates space for physical repair, stillness creates space for psychological repair.

Both practices share a common lesson: not every need is a command.

You do not have to eat because you are hungry.

You do not have to react because you are anxious.

You do not have to indulge every craving simply because it arrives.

You can notice.

Wait.

Observe.

Choose.

In that small gap lies a surprising amount of freedom.

Perhaps this is why fasting has appeared throughout human history not merely as a health practice but as a spiritual one. Across cultures and centuries, people discovered that voluntarily stepping away from abundance changes something fundamental. Hunger sharpens awareness. Simplicity clarifies priorities. Restraint strengthens agency.

The benefits may be biological.

They may be psychological.

They may be spiritual.

Most likely, they are all three.

Modern life encourages constant consumption. More food. More information. More entertainment. More stimulation. More noise.

But health may depend as much on what we occasionally refrain from consuming as on what we consume.

The body needs periods of recovery.

The mind needs periods of silence.

The spirit, whatever that word means to you, needs periods of emptiness.

Not because emptiness is the goal.

Because emptiness creates space for renewal.

The ancient traditions understood this long before anyone could measure blood glucose, inflammation markers, or cellular signaling pathways.

They simply noticed that people who periodically embraced voluntary hardship often emerged stronger, calmer, and more resilient.

Modern science is still sorting out the details.

Yet the principle remains remarkably old:

Sometimes strength is not built by adding more.

Sometimes it is built by needing less.

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Read my books!

The recent leak of Dialog membership lists has triggered a predictable reaction.

Some people see a room full of billionaires, politicians, military leaders, academics, and media figures and conclude that a conspiracy is underway.

Others see the same room and shrug. Nothing unusual, they say. Just smart people exchanging ideas.

Both reactions miss something important: The real question is not whether influential people are trying to shape the future. Of course they are.

The real question is why we find that fact so alarming in some cases and so admirable in others.

Imagine a gathering of wealthy individuals discussing how to reduce malaria, improve education, accelerate scientific discovery, or prevent war. Most of us would celebrate the effort. We might disagree with specific proposals, but we would generally applaud the intention.

Now imagine those same individuals discussing politics, artificial intelligence, media strategy, economic policy, or cultural change.

Suddenly the tone shifts.

The difference is not influence. The difference is preference.

The Stoics had a useful way of looking at the world. They distinguished between what was preferred and what was dispreferred. Wealth was preferred to poverty. Health was preferred to illness. Peace was preferred to conflict.

But preferences were not the same thing as virtue.

A wealthy person was not automatically good. A poor person was not automatically wise. The preferred outcome was merely an outcome we happened to want.

This framework helps explain much of our reaction to elite influence.

When powerful people advocate for outcomes we prefer, we call it leadership.

When they advocate for outcomes we dislike, we call it manipulation.

When they fund projects we support, we call it philanthropy.

When they fund projects we oppose, we call it interference.

The behavior itself often remains remarkably similar.

This is not an argument that influence is harmless.

History contains countless examples of wealthy and powerful individuals bending institutions toward their own interests. Citizens are right to demand transparency. They are right to question concentrations of power. They are right to remain skeptical of private networks operating beyond public scrutiny.

But skepticism should not become mythology.

There is a temptation to imagine a small group of people secretly controlling every major event. The reality is usually more complicated.

Most influential people are not trying to rule the world.

They are trying to shape it.

That distinction matters.

Human beings naturally seek agency. As our resources, knowledge, and connections grow, so does our ability to affect outcomes. A teacher shapes the future through students. A business owner shapes it through employment. A mayor shapes it through policy. A billionaire shapes it through capital.

Influence is not the exception.

Influence is the rule.

The only difference is scale.

Perhaps that is why the Dialog revelations provoke such strong reactions. They force us to confront a question that is both political and personal:

Who should have the right to shape the future?

• The wealthy?

• The educated?

• The elected?

• The experts?

• The majority?

The answer is probably some uneasy combination of all of them.

But there is another question hiding underneath.

What about us?

It is easy to look upward and become fascinated by the influence of powerful people. It is harder to look inward and ask how we are using the influence already available to us.

Most of us will never sit in a private gathering of billionaires and heads of state.

But every one of us influences a family, a workplace, a neighborhood, a school, a community, or a network of friends.

Every one of us possesses some capacity to shape the future.

The challenge is not merely to criticize influence. The challenge is to exercise it responsibly.

• Volunteer locally.

• Mentor someone younger.

• Start a business.

• Support a cause.

• Run for office.

• Teach.

• Create.

• Build.

• Organize.

• Lead.

The future is always being shaped by people who choose to act.

The final question, then, is not whether influence should exist.

It already does.

The question is how much responsibility should accompany it.

And if we were suddenly given more influence tomorrow—more wealth, more authority, more reach, more power—would we demand from ourselves the same standards we demand from those at the top?

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Read my books!

For most of my life, I searched for a philosophy that could help me navigate reality as it is, not as I wished it to be.

I found wisdom in Stoicism. I found clarity in Zen. I found ease in Daoism.

For years, I treated them as separate traditions. One taught discipline. One taught awareness. One taught flow.

Eventually, I began to suspect they were describing different aspects of the same mountain.

The result is what I call Zen Stoic Daoism (ZSD)—not a new religion or doctrine, but a practical framework for living, planning, and acting in an uncertain world.

The Problem with Most Modern Thinking

Much of modern life trains us to believe that happiness lies just beyond the next achievement.

Get the promotion.

Buy the house.

Reach retirement.

Lose the weight.

Publish the book.

Then you’ll arrive.

Yet every milestone reveals another horizon beyond it. The destination moves. The result is a life spent chasing outcomes while neglecting the process of living.

ZSD begins with a different assumption:

Reality is not a problem to be solved. It is a river to be navigated.

The Three Pillars

Each tradition contributes something essential.

Zen: See Clearly

Zen begins with awareness. Most suffering arises not from events themselves but from the stories we immediately attach to them.

• A delayed flight becomes a ruined vacation.

• A market decline becomes financial catastrophe.

• A criticism becomes an attack on our identity.

Zen teaches us to pause before the story begins.

Observe.

Listen.

Breathe.

What is actually happening right now?

Not tomorrow. Not next year. Not in imagination.

Now.

The purpose is not passivity. The purpose is clarity. You cannot navigate accurately if your map is distorted.

Stoicism: Act Well

Once reality is seen clearly, Stoicism asks a simple question:

What is yours to do?

• You cannot control the weather. You can reef the sails.

• You cannot control markets. You can save and invest wisely.

• You cannot control other people. You can control your character.

Stoicism teaches responsibility without attachment. The outcome belongs to reality. The effort belongs to you.

This distinction is liberating. It frees us from anxiety while preserving accountability. We are responsible for our actions, not for the universe.

Daoism: Flow Naturally

Many people misunderstand Daoism as laziness. It is not. Daoism teaches alignment.

• A skilled sailor does not command the wind. A skilled sailor works with it.

• A skilled martial artist does not oppose force directly. They redirect it.

• A skilled leader does not micromanage every detail. They create conditions for success.

The Daoist principle of wu wei—often translated as “non-action”—is better understood as “non-forcing.”

Act when action is needed. Wait when waiting is wiser. Push when the current favors movement. Rest when resistance serves no purpose.

The goal is not inactivity. The goal is efficiency.

A Unified Framework

When combined, the three traditions create a surprisingly practical sequence:

1. See clearly. (Zen)

2. Act appropriately. (Stoicism)

3. Do not force outcomes. (Daoism)

Then repeat.

This becomes useful in nearly every area of life.

Relationships

• See the other person as they are, not as you wish them to be.

• Do your part with honesty, patience, and integrity.

• Allow the relationship to develop naturally.

Career

• Understand reality before making decisions.

• Develop skills and character.

• Avoid chasing status for its own sake.

• Move where opportunities naturally emerge.

Health

• Accept the body you currently inhabit.

• Train consistently.

• Avoid extremes and unsustainable programs.

• Trust long-term habits over short-term intensity.

Financial Planning

• See your situation honestly.

• Save, invest, and prepare.

• Recognize that markets, economies, and world events remain beyond your control.

• Focus on process rather than prediction.

Long-Term Dreams

• Plan thoroughly.

• Work steadily.

• Remain flexible.

The future is a destination reached through adaptation, not stubbornness.

The Illusion of Control

One of the central insights of ZSD is that control is both real and limited.

Many people make one of two mistakes. Some believe they control everything. Others believe they control nothing.

Both positions are false.

You control your decisions. You influence your circumstances. You do not control outcomes. The sailor chooses the course. The sea determines the conditions.

Wisdom lies in understanding the difference.

The Practice

A daily ZSD practice can be remarkably simple.

Morning:

• Ask: What is mine to do today?

Throughout the day:

• Return attention to what is actually happening.

When facing difficulty:

• Ask whether the problem requires action, acceptance, or patience.

Evening:

• Review your actions rather than your results.

• Did you act well?

• Did you see clearly?

• Did you force what should have been allowed to unfold?

If so, adjust tomorrow.

The Goal

The goal is not happiness. Happiness comes and goes. The goal is not success. Success is often defined by forces beyond our control. The goal is not even peace. Life guarantees periods of turmoil.

The goal is alignment.

To see reality clearly. To act with integrity. To move with the current rather than against it.

A person living this way may still encounter storms, losses, failures, and uncertainty. But they are less likely to be broken by them. Like a sailor crossing an ocean, they learn to trust three things:

• Their awareness.

• Their skill.

• And the larger currents through which they travel.

The wind may change. The destination may change. The voyage continues.

That is enough.

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Read my books!

Brent Antonson argues that the future of global communication will default to a broken, simplified English—not because it’s ideal, but because it’s the least bad option we have. The reasoning is familiar: English is already dominant, and in a world where no one can agree on anything, half-understood English is better than nothing.

But this is a resignation to mediocrity. If we’re building a multiplanetary civilization and navigating the geopolitical minefields of 21st-century Earth, we can’t afford a language that’s clunky, politically charged, and prone to miscommunication. We need a designed solution—one that’s neutral, precise, and scalable. That solution already exists. It’s called Esperanto, and with a modern, mission-driven rebrand as Bazo (Basic), it could become the lingua franca of space, diplomacy, and AI.

The Problem with “Broken English”

The Antonson argument hinges on three assumptions:

1. English is already too entrenched to replace.

2. No other language can achieve the same global reach.

3. A “broken” version of English is “good enough” for global communication.

Let’s dismantle each of these.

1. English Is Entrenched—But That’s the Problem

English is the default language of science, aviation, and the internet, but its dominance comes with three critical flaws that make it unsuitable for high-stakes collaboration:

• Colonial Baggage: English is inextricably tied to the history of empire. For many, it’s a symbol of cultural erasure, not unity. In UN Security Council meetings or multinational space missions, this baggage fuels resentment and undermines trust.

• Complexity = Inefficiency: English is notoriously irregular. The average learner needs 1,500+ hours to reach fluency, compared to 150–200 hours for Esperanto. In space missions, where every second counts, this is a liability.

• Ambiguity = Danger: English is riddled with idioms, homonyms, and context-dependent meanings. A misplaced preposition or misheard word could mean the difference between a successful Mars landing and a catastrophe. (Ask NASA about the Mars Climate Orbiter, lost because of a metric/imperial mix-up—a failure of linguistic precision.)

Broken English doesn’t fix these problems—it exacerbates them. If we’re going to coordinate multinational space missions or negotiate global security crises, we need a language that’s designed for clarity, not one that’s accidentally dominant.

2. No Other Language Can Compete—Because We Haven’t Tried

The Antonson article assumes that no constructed language (like Esperanto) could ever achieve the network effects of English. But this ignores two key realities:

• Esperanto Already Works: With 2 million speakers, a thriving literary culture, and UN recognition, Esperanto is the most successful constructed language in history. It’s used in diplomacy, science, and the arts—and it’s 10x easier to learn than English.

• Network Effects Can Be Built: English didn’t become dominant because it was the best language—it became dominant because of colonialism and economic power. Bazo (a rebranded, modernized Esperanto) could achieve the same network effects if it’s adopted by the right institutions (e.g., SpaceX, the UN, or the EU).

The question isn’t, “Can a constructed language compete with English?” It’s, “What if we designed a language specifically for the challenges of the 21st century?”

3. “Good Enough” Isn’t Good Enough for Space or Security

In low-stakes conversations, broken English might suffice. But in high-stakes environments, it’s a recipe for disaster. Consider the English risk versus the Bazo advantage:

1. Space Mission Control

   1. English: A misheard command could destroy a rocket.

   2. Bazo: Phonetic spelling and regular grammar eliminate ambiguity.

2. UN Security Council

   1. English: A mistranslated word could spark a war.

   2. Bazo: Neutral, precise terms reduce diplomatic friction.

3. AI-Human Interaction

   1. English: A misinterpreted prompt could cause an AI to malfunction.

   2. Bazo: Logical structure makes Bazo easier for AI to parse.

4. Multinational Engineering Teams

   1. English: A misunderstood specification could doom a Mars colony.

   2. Bazo: Technical terms are consistent and unambiguous.

Broken English is like using a Swiss Army knife as a scalpel. It might work in a pinch, but when lives and billions of dollars are on the line, we need precision tools.

The Solution: Bazo for Space and Security

Bazo (a rebranded, space-optimized Esperanto) isn’t just a theoretical alternative—it’s a practical, ready-to-deploy solution for the two most pressing linguistic challenges of our time:

1. The multinational nature of space work.

2. The need for neutral, precise communication in UN security operations.

Here’s how it works.

1. Bazo for Space: The Language of the Multiplanetary Age

Space exploration is the most multinational endeavor in history. The International Space Station (ISS) involves 15 nations, and future Moon and Mars missions will require even broader collaboration. English is the current default, but it’s not fit for purpose. Here’s why Bazo is better:

A. Neutrality = Trust

• No Colonial Baggage: Unlike English, Bazo is not tied to any nation or culture. This makes it ideal for international crews, where national pride can be a barrier to cooperation.

• No “Native Speakers”: In English, native speakers have an unfair advantage. In Bazo, everyone starts equal—a level playing field for astronauts from China, India, Nigeria, or Brazil.

B. Precision = Safety

• No Ambiguity: Bazo’s regular grammar and phonetic spelling mean no misheard commands or misinterpreted manuals.

• Technical Clarity: Bazo can coin new terms as needed (e.g., stelvojo = spaceway, marsdomo = Mars habitat) without the confusion of English’s borrowed Latin/Greek roots.

C. Efficiency = Speed

• 10x Faster to Learn: Astronauts can achieve fluency in months, not years.

• AI-Optimized: Bazo’s logical structure makes it easier for AI (e.g., Grok, xAI) to translate and process, reducing latency and errors in mission-critical communications.

D. Scalability = Future-Proofing

• Adaptable: Bazo can evolve with new scientific and technical terms as space exploration advances.

• Open-Source: Unlike English, which is controlled by no one and everyone, Bazo can be collaboratively developed by the space community.

Proposal for Space Agencies:

1. Pilot Program: Test Bazo in astronaut training for SpaceX, NASA, or ESA.

2. Integration: Use Bazo for mission control communications and technical manuals.

3. Standardization: Adopt Bazo as the official auxiliary language for all multinational space missions.

2. Bazo for UN Security: The Language of Neutral Diplomacy

The UN Security Council is a powder keg of miscommunication. With five permanent members (each with veto power) and 10 non-permanent members, every word matters. English and French are the working languages, but this excludes non-native speakers and fuels resentment.

Bazo could be the neutral, precise language that unlocks real diplomacy. Here’s how:

A. Reduces Power Imbalances

• No Linguistic Hegemony: In the UN, English and French dominate, giving native speakers (e.g., the US, UK, France) an unfair advantage. Bazo levels the playing field.

• Inclusive: Speakers of Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish, or Russian can learn Bazo faster than English, making the UN more representative.

B. Minimizes Misinterpretations

• No Idioms or Slang: In diplomacy, a single misinterpreted word can derail negotiations. Bazo’s literal, unambiguous structure reduces this risk.

• Cultural Neutrality: Bazo has no idioms, proverbs, or cultural references that could offend or confuse delegates.

C. Enables Real-Time Translation

• AI-Friendly: Bazo’s simplicity makes it ideal for real-time AI translation in UN meetings, reducing delays and errors.

• Human + AI Hybrid: Delegates could speak in Bazo, with AI providing instant translations to their native languages.

Proposal for the UN:

1. Auxiliary Language Status: Adopt Bazo as a third working language for the UN Security Council and General Assembly.

2. Diplomat Training: Offer Bazo courses for UN staff and delegates.

3. AI Integration: Use Bazo as the default language for UN AI translation tools.

The Path Forward: How to Make Bazo Inevitable

Bazo won’t replace English overnight—but it doesn’t need to. It just needs to carve out a niche where its advantages are undeniable. Here’s the three-step plan:

Step 1: Prove It Works (Pilot Programs)

• Space: Partner with SpaceX, NASA, or ESA to test Bazo in astronaut training or mission simulations.

• UN: Work with the UN’s language and communication teams to pilot Bazo in low-stakes diplomatic settings (e.g., youth programs, technical committees).

• Tech: Collaborate with xAI, Google, or DeepL to train AI models on Bazo and demonstrate its superiority for technical communication.

Step 2: Build the Infrastructure (Tools and Community)

• Training Materials: Develop Bazo textbooks, apps, and online courses (e.g., a Duolingo Bazo course).

• Translation Tools: Create Bazo-English, Bazo-Mandarin, Bazo-Arabic translators.

• Community: Grow a global Bazo-speaking community through social media, Discord, and local meetups.

Step 3: Scale It (Institutional Adoption)

• Space Agencies: Push for Bazo to become the official auxiliary language of space exploration.

• UN: Advocate for Bazo as a working language in UN technical and security bodies.

• Tech Industry: Encourage AI developers to prioritize Bazo for multilingual applications.

The Counterarguments—And Why They’re Wrong

“English is already too dominant.”

Dominance ≠ efficiency. Bazo is better for high-stakes environments.

“No one will learn a new language.”

2 million people already speak Esperanto. Astronauts and diplomats will learn if it’s mandatory for their work.

“Esperanto failed. Why will Bazo succeed?”

Esperanto didn’t fail—it lacks a killer app. Bazo’s space and UN focus gives it purpose.

“We can just use AI translation.”

AI translation is not perfect—especially for technical or diplomatic language. Bazo reduces the margin for error.

“It’s too late to change now.”

Space exploration and UN reform are still in their infancy. Now is the perfect time to introduce Bazo.

A Call to Action: The Time for Bazo Is Now

We’re at a crossroads. In the next 20 years, humanity will:

• Establish permanent bases on the Moon and Mars.

• Navigate an increasingly multipolar world order.

• Integrate AI into every aspect of our lives.

In all these scenarios, language will be a bottleneck—or a bridge. Broken English is a band-aid. Bazo is the scalpel.

To the space agencies, diplomats, and technologists reading this: You don’t have to wait for permission. Start using Bazo today. Teach it to your teams. Integrate it into your manuals, your AI, your negotiations. The more it’s used, the more inevitable it becomes.

To the rest of us: Learn Bazo. Not because it’s easy (though it is), but because it’s necessary. The language of the future shouldn’t be broken. It should be built for purpose.

The stars are waiting. Let’s give them a language worthy of the journey.

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Read my books!

Leave a comment

Real tradecraft (what you probably think of as “spycraft”) is boring. It’s quiet. It avoids heroics. Its primary goal is not secrecy—it’s control of exposure.

Most civilians think privacy means “nothing to hide.” Professionals think in terms of signature.

1. Think in Signatures, Not Secrets

You are not protecting a secret. You are managing a pattern. A signature is the total of:

• Where you go

• What you buy

• What devices you carry

• How often you log in

• Who you talk to

• What stays consistent over time

No single data point matters. Correlation does.

Tradecraft principle:

Reduce consistency where it’s unnecessary. Reduce volume everywhere.

2. Assume Collection Is Passive and Continuous

The mistake people make is imagining an adversary actively watching. That’s old thinking. Modern surveillance is:

• Passive

• Automated

• Retrospective

Nobody needs to care about you today. Your data can be:

• Stored cheaply

• Queried later

• Reinterpreted out of context

Tradecraft principle:

Act as though everything is logged, but nothing is urgent.

This keeps you calm—and rational.

3. Friction Is a Feature, Not a Bug

Consumer tech is optimized to remove friction. Surveillance systems rely on that. Tradecraft reintroduces just enough friction to break automation:

• Extra verification

• Manual steps

• Slower workflows

• Separate devices

If something feels slightly inconvenient, that’s often the point.

Tradecraft principle:

Automation is the enemy of discretion.

4. Centralization Is the Real Risk

People obsess over encryption and miss the bigger threat: aggregation. One account controlling:

• Email

• Phone number

• Cloud storage

• Payments

• Identity recovery

…is a single catastrophic failure point. Tradecraft spreads risk horizontally.

Tradecraft principle:

Nothing critical should hinge on one account, one device, or one credential.

This applies to families even more than individuals.

5. Identity ≠ Devices ≠ Accounts

Professionals separate:

• Legal identity

• Digital identity

• Communications identity

Civilians collapse them into one phone. You don’t need burner phones or aliases to learn the lesson:

• Not every account needs your real name

• Not every device needs every app

• Not every service deserves permanence

Tradecraft principle:

Temporary tools should not create permanent records.

6. Visibility Is Contextual

Total invisibility is unrealistic and unnecessary. What matters is where visibility is acceptable and where it isn’t.

Examples:

• Public writing under your real name: fine

• Financial access tied to your phone number: dangerous

• Location sharing by default: unnecessary

• Medical or family data in third-party apps: avoidable

Tradecraft principle:

Choose where you are visible. Never accept default visibility.

7. Boring Beats Clever

Clever systems attract attention. Boring systems endure.

A simple phone, a notebook, a dedicated camera, a password manager—these don’t signal anything unusual. They just reduce exhaust.

Tradecraft principle:

Blend by being ordinary, not by being invisible.

This is where tech degrowth quietly wins.

8. Families Multiply Risk

Children don’t generate “less” data. They generate longer-lived data. Tradecraft with a family means:

• Locking identity early (credit, SSN)

• Limiting cloud-first education tools

• Avoiding smart toys and tracking wearables

• Teaching habits, not fear

Tradecraft principle:

Children inherit your digital decisions.

9. Tradecraft Is Maintenance, Not a Project

This is not a weekend purge. It’s:

• Annual reviews

• Occasional tightening

• Calm adjustment as systems change

Tradecraft principle:

You don’t win privacy. You maintain it.

10. The Goal: Agency, Not Withdrawal

This is important.

Tradecraft is not about:

• Hiding

• Opting out of society

• Living like a ghost

It’s about retaining the ability to choose:

• When to engage

• What to share

• What not to digitize at all

That’s it.

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Read my books!

Leave a comment

We live inside a surveillance environment.

Not a dystopian future one. A mundane, commercial, always-on one.

Every tap, swipe, search, purchase, movement, and message is logged somewhere. Not usually by governments at first, but by private companies whose business model depends on collecting, correlating, and selling behavioral data. Governments come later, often through legal compulsion or quiet partnership.

This isn’t paranoia. It’s infrastructure.

You don’t opt out of ubiquitous technical surveillance by being clever or angry. You opt out by being deliberate—by reducing what you emit, narrowing what you expose, and simplifying your digital life so there’s simply less to harvest.

What follows is not about disappearing. It’s about lowering your signature.

Think tradecraft, not tinfoil.

The Core Idea: Reduce Attack Surface

Most people try to “secure” everything while continuing to generate an endless stream of data. That’s backwards.

The real leverage comes from producing less data in the first place.

This is where tech degrowth enters the picture: fewer devices, fewer accounts, fewer services, fewer points of failure.

A simple phone beats a perfectly hardened smartphone every time.

Practical Countermeasures (Plain English Edition)

1. Remove Your Data From the Open Internet

Data brokers aggregate public and semi-public records into disturbingly accurate profiles. You can:

• Use a removal service (or DIY it, if you have time and patience)

• Repeat annually—this is not a one-and-done task

This alone dramatically reduces downstream fraud, doxxing, and targeting.

2. Freeze Your Credit (and Your Kids’ Credit)

Credit freezes are free and do not affect your score. Freeze:

• Equifax

• Experian

• TransUnion

If you have children, freezing their credit is tedious—but worth it. Child identity theft often goes unnoticed for years.

3. Enable Fraud Alerts

A fraud alert adds friction. Friction is good. Set it once with any credit bureau; they’re required to notify the others. Make sure your phone number is correct.

4. Lock Down Your Mobile Number

SIM swapping is one of the easiest ways to hijack someone’s digital life. Call your carrier or log in and enable:

• Account PIN

• Port-out protection

• Number lock

If your phone number controls your financial accounts, treat it like a master key.

5. Use Fewer Passwords—and Let Software Remember Them

Humans are terrible at passwords. Use:

• A password manager

• Unique passwords for every service

• Two-factor authentication everywhere it’s offered

Security improves when memory is outsourced correctly.

6. Assume Free Email Means You’re the Product

If you’re not paying for email, your data is part of the transaction. Paid, privacy-respecting email providers reduce scanning, profiling, and long-term retention. Pair this with:

• Encrypted messaging (Signal)

• A browser that limits tracking by default

• Regular deletion of search and location history

You don’t need invisibility. You need boundaries.

7. Stop Oversharing by Default

Email aliases and masked numbers exist for a reason. Use them for:

• Newsletters

• Online purchases

• Account sign-ups

When one service leaks, it shouldn’t expose your entire identity.

8. Lock Down Taxes, Loans, and Government Accounts

Create:

• An IRS Identity Protection PIN

• An online Social Security account (before someone else does)

Download and store:

• Tax filings

• Student loan records

• Payment histories

Paper still has advantages.

9. Opt Out of What You Can

You won’t stop all data sharing, but you can reduce the volume:

• Opt out of prescreened credit offers

• Register with the Do Not Call Registry

• Decline optional data sharing in financial apps

Again: friction.

10. Use Fewer Devices—and Make Them Boring

Every “smart” device is a sensor. Consider:

• A simple phone instead of a flagship smartphone

• Single-purpose devices (camera, e-reader, GPS)

• Fewer apps, fewer permissions, fewer notifications

Convenience is expensive. You pay with data.

11. Be Skeptical of Health and Location Apps

Some data categories are more sensitive than others. Location and health data often:

• Lives on third-party servers

• Is not protected by medical privacy laws

• Can be subpoenaed or sold

If an app doesn’t need the data to function, don’t give it.

12. VPNs: Useful, Not Magical

A VPN can:

• Obscure traffic from your ISP

• Reduce tracking on public networks

It does not:

• Make you anonymous

• Protect you from bad account hygiene

Think of it as a seat-belt, not invisibility cloaking.

A Word on “Extreme Privacy”

For those who want to go further, there’s a deeper end of the pool.
Michael Bazzell’s book Extreme Privacy lays out a comprehensive, disciplined approach to minimizing digital exhaust.

It’s not for everyone.

But even adopting 10–20% of that mindset—fewer accounts, fewer digital dependencies, fewer always-connected devices—has outsized benefits.

The Quiet Rebellion

This isn’t about fear. It’s about agency. Ubiquitous surveillance thrives on:

• Complexity

• Convenience

• Complacency

The counter is:

• Simplicity

• Intentional friction

• Enough-ism

You don’t have to disappear. You just have to stop making it easy.

All One/Teague

48.8767° S, 123.3933° W

Read my books!

Leave a comment

Society does a remarkable job of keeping us from noticing the obvious: we are going to die.

Not in an abstract way. Not someday. In a personal, inconvenient, unavoidable way.

So we’re encouraged to stay busy. To consume—objects, entertainment, food, sex, information. To keep our minds occupied enough not to wander into dangerous territory. Because once you really internalize that life is finite, a lot of things stop making sense. Entire industries depend on you not thinking too hard about that.

Hospice workers will tell you the same story over and over. At the end, people don’t talk about the house, the car, the résumé, or the numbers in an account. They talk about people. Moments. Love. Regret. The times they showed up—and the times they didn’t.

That pattern should bother us.

You will only get to kiss your wife a finite number of times.

You don’t know what that number is. None of us do. But we live as if it’s effectively infinite. As if there will always be another morning, another chance, another “later.” Infinity makes us careless. It turns presence into background noise.

Finitude does the opposite. It sharpens things.

The problem isn’t death. The problem is denial.

When death is kept at arm’s length—medicalized, euphemized, hidden—we start living as if life were a rehearsal. We delay what matters. We tolerate what we shouldn’t. We trade depth for distraction and call it comfort.

Memento mori isn’t about being morbid. It’s about being honest.

It’s the refusal to live under the illusion of “someday.” It’s the quiet understanding that time is not a resource you manage—it’s a gift you’re spending whether you notice or not.

Once you really accept that, priorities rearrange themselves without much effort.

People matter more than possessions.

Presence matters more than productivity.

Courage matters more than comfort.

And attention becomes sacred.

Scarcity always sharpens attention. When you remember that moments are countable, you stop skimming your own life. You listen a little more closely. You put the phone down sooner. You choose the harder conversation instead of the easier distraction.

This is the part most people avoid, because it requires feeling things fully.

Distraction protects us from anxiety, but it also numbs joy. To really live—to “suck the marrow out of life,” as Thoreau put it—means accepting vulnerability. Loving without guarantees. Choosing meaning over ease. Showing up even when it would be simpler not to.

So here are a few reminders I try to keep close. Not as rules. As bearings.

This day will not repeat.

Later is not promised.

People are not background scenery.

Attention is how you honor what matters.

Comfort is a poor substitute for meaning.

You don’t honor death by obsessing over it. You honor it by refusing to waste the life that precedes it.

Memento mori.

Not to frighten yourself—but to wake up.

All One/Teague

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share OpenLog